Studies show that patients with a neurological injury, such as due to stroke, multiple sclerosis, trauma, or a degenerative brain condition such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, benefit from treatment by a clinician, such as a physical therapist, specializing in rehabilitation therapy combined with home exercising. Unfortunately, most people only receive limited amounts of therapy and similarly perform only limited amounts of home exercise. The reasons for this can include the high cost of and limited access to rehabilitation therapy and low motivation to perform exercises at home. Regardless of the reasons, the limited amounts of rehabilitation therapy provided and home exercising performed often result in the patient not achieving the highest level of recovery.
Traditionally, in-home occupational and physical therapy assignments emphasize repeating exercises with simple devices such as a stretchable band. Unfortunately, no rehabilitation systems currently integrate actual activities of daily living (ADLs) and independent ADLs (iADLs) into a patient's in-home rehabilitation therapy regimen. Some primary reasons for the resistance in adding ADL-based (and/or iADL-based) exercises to the patient's in-home rehabilitation therapy regimen may include (1) the inability of clinicians to receive a sufficient amount of information associated with the performance of in-home exercises directed to ADLs and/or iADLs, and (2) the inability of patients to receive a sufficient amount of feedback on such ADL/iADL-directed exercises. As a result, clinicians are unable to appreciate irregularities in movement unless the patient is performing an ADL or iADL task and the clinician is actually watching the patient during a video conferencing session. However, given that video conferencing provides a single perspective of the patient, subtle movement irregularities may not be appreciated and chances to achieve greater improvements from neurological injury are lost.